City Statement: Report of PFAS in the Inner Harbor Ship Channel

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX – The City of Corpus Christi is aware of a recently released memo on a report of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the Inner Harbor Ship Channel.

PFAS and other micro-contaminants have always been considered in the approach for designing the Inner Harbor Water Treatment Campus (IHWTC) – the City’s seawater desalination initiative. 

The most robust treatment approach is reverse osmosis, a process the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognizes in their Drinking Water Treatment Database as one of the most effective means of removing PFAS to produce pure, safe drinking water. Reverse osmosis is central to the desalination process and will be capable of removing the compounds in the raw water to acceptable levels. The EPA suggests removal efficiencies over 99%.  

Additionally, a small amount of PFAS is expected to be removed through the pre-treatment processes of the plant and will be disposed of with the other waste materials. While the byproduct of the desalination process, known as concentrate or brine, will be returned to the Ship Channel with PFAS that was in the original raw water, the contaminant levels will be reduced due to the treatment processes. Similar to salinity, the PFAS constituents will return to ambient levels as a result of the jet diffusion technology that is being utilized for the discharge system.

The IHWTC will meet all existing PFAS management regulations. The team involved in the design and construction of the IHWTC – including City staff, Freese and Nichols, and Kiewit – will remain alert to any possible changes to regulations and can engineer solutions to meet or exceed future requirements.

For more information about the Inner Harbor Water Treatment Campus project, visit https://bit.ly/3XRKev5 or contact Strategic Business Manager Rachel Esses at 361-826-7350.